Maija Setälä gained her PhD at the LSE in 1997. She is currently a Professor in Political Science at the University of Turku, Finland. Setälä is a political theorists who also likes to conduct empirical and experimental research. She specialises in democratic theory, political trust, direct democracy, and democratic innovations. She has published widely on these topics, for example, in European Journal of Political Research, Political Behaviour, and Policy Studies. Setälä has led several large and multidisciplinary research projects. Currently, she leads Research Group for Innovating Democracy (RIDE) at the University of Turku and is one of the four co-PIs in the ERC Synergy Project Advancing Digital Democratic Innovation ADDI (2025-2031).